Book Burning By Bjorn

Book burning in the fictional world of Fahrenheit 451 is a very prevalent theme. The thought of this in the modern day is seen to be barbaric and taboo (very fictional) as books are very respected in the present world. Sadly, this book burning is far from fictional and in most cases used for malicious purposes. Unlike shredding or soiling books, burning is a sign of hate, disgust and is the only way to fully destroy the information held within. The earliest sightings of book burning were from the Qin Dynasty in china, 213BC. The purpose of this was to remove all heretical views against the government. As well as this, book burning has occurred numerous other times in China. Another example is Emperor Shih Huan Tis book burning regime. He planned to burn all historical documents in china in effort to wipe history so he could make history from a blank canvas. 8 centuries after this in Alexandria Egypt, Caliph Omar burnt up to two hundred thousand books under the cities baths under the grounds of objectionable and immoral content. The flame from the books heated the water in the baths for six months straight. More recent sightings of book burning are the New York Society of Suppression of Vice, the Nazi book burning regimes, Comic book burning in America and the current Koran Burning incidents in Gainesville Florida. New York Society of Suppression of Vice was founded as a society to enforce morality in the public. Anthony Comstock, a strong Christian, politician, veteran and also strong believer in Victorian morality, established the society in 1873. In the year of the founding, Comstock passed an important law (the Comstock Law) in US congress to ban the flow of all indecent, lewd images, writings etc. into the US as well as banning information relating to birth control techniques. In total, the society seized and burnt 15 tones of books, four million pictures and two hundred and eighty thousand journals because they were classified as lewd under the Comstock law. These burnings and seizing continued until 1957 where the society fell apart after their leader perished.

Figure 1: Symbol for the New York Society For the Suppression Of Vice

Figure 2: Picture of Nazi book burning

Probably the most famous of book burning cases but not the grandest, the Nazi Book Burning regime was the burning of information that did not correspond to Nazi ideology. This was censorship of information to the German and German controlled communities. The book burnings occurred during the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler in may ten, 1933. The burning of these books were not only limited to civilians but to universities and Jewish libraries.

Book Burning By Bjorn

Another notable case of book burning is again in America where the mass burning of comic books was undertaken. This was during the mid 50s and was by parents and religious communities. The reason of these burnings was to rid the immoral books from children, as they were feared to turn children into little rebels. An example of one of the comics is Seduction of the Innocent that tied sexual themes with violence.
Figure 3: An example of an immoral comic of the time.

Finally, the most recent case of book burning was last year on the ninth anniversary of 9/11 in a small town in Florida named Gainesville. Here an extreme patriotic remembered this traumatic day by burning many copies of the Koran, the Islamic sacred book. This act was meant to show how Figure 4: International America was dominant over the Islamic extremists but Burn A Koran Day instead was taken as disgrace to the followers. Much tension was created by this act and protests were held around the world because of this one man.

Book Burning By Bjorn